This May Be The Last Chance (To Gloat, To Sing High Praises, To Celebrate Victory): The VF-1 May Not Get Past The Evangelion Test Type Next Round, But Let Us Remember Love For What It Did to the Sinanju in Sai Mecha

Macross’ mecha proved something very important. Without Minovsky Particles, Gundams, Mobile Suits, Armors, Capitol Ships, Every Close-Range Attack Craft in its franchise, is frickin’ TOAST against even conventional weapons. Minovsky Particles render contemporary guidance systems useless, requiring combatants to fight in visual range. Otherwise, it is stupid beyond reason to devote research and development to heat tomahawks and beam sabers.

In Sai Mecha, Gundam doesn’t get to impose its technological status quo. The assumption must be: ALL WEAPONS WILL WORK. Thus, the Sinanju never had a prayer against the very least of the VFs which pack payloads of guided missiles. If infantry-borne munitions can harm it, as Daguze was able to prove in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn episode 03, there is no reason to doubt that a single guided missile can critically damage the Sinanju.

It does NOT have the machine gun power to shoot down an entire Itano Circus. It doesn’t even have machine guns PERIOD. It has no countermeasures against missiles. Unfortunately for the Sinanju, against a VF it won’t be dodging single beam shots firing at semi-automatic, while it will need to cover so much space just to be able to see a VF in its sights.

The Sinanju sure looks big and powerful, and it is: able to power 540-1080 American households circa late-20th/early-21st century. But against the lowliest of VFs, IT’S NOT EVEN FUCKING CLOSE. The mass production Variable Fighter can power 110,000-210,000 American households, or, basically 30% of the output of the Hoover Dam, or half the output of Fukushima I.

I’ve been rather kind, in my appeal to Gundam fans to vote against their Big Red Hope. But now that victory of the mass-produced wonder, the fake underdog, Macross’ Variable Fighter is secure, I can cut loose and let the mecha rev its engines and show what real power is. The Sinanju can shove all its mythic/symbolic Zeon peanut butter up its ass.

To celebrate the glorious win, here are some images of Battloids from my own personal Revoltech collection:

Sai Mecha isn’t Sai Gundam. And even so, missiles in Gundam are guided though in closer range. It only takes one. Gundam missiles are just a lot weaker. So even in a Minovsky Particle rich environment, the Sinanju is screwed. But we aren’t in a Minovsky Particle rich environment, so Sinanju loses again.

I don’t get the Minovsky particle thing. A missile with radiation shielding and capable of visual tracking wouldn’t be cheap, but most modern missiles aren’t. A VF-1 would only need one of these in its payload (well, okay, a space-to-space version):

Well, we really can’t take robot anime science fiction too seriously can we? But let us grant that this magic particle (GN Particles in Gundam 00) is capable of doing what it’s supposed to, even though Gundam routinely ignores this conceit whenever it pleases (by having advanced targeting systems in its units anyway).

Yeah, be fair, man. You can’t just randomly decide what technology works and what doesn’t (regardless of how the voting results turned out), that’s just playing favorites. Of course VF-1 would win if you just decide that the rules of Macross override all others. By that same logic you could also claim that VF-1 would crush EVA-01 or any other mecha because the AT-field and other such central conceits wouldn’t work.

Like I said: ASSUME ALL WEAPONS WORK. This means, all weapons will work regardless of GN or Minovsky, or whatever particles blanket the field. It is the opposite of fair to have ALL robot anime follow Gundam physics.

Even so, the Sinanju is toast anyway.

Also, the AT Fields do work. The VF-1 destroyed the Production Type Eva in Round 2 because the AT Field couldn’t cover the whole length of the power cord. Eventually the Unit 02 gassed out like a loser.

So, eventually Ideon, Gurren Lagann, Getter Emperor or other such ultra powerful robot (I’m guessing Demonblade or whatever is the new favorite?) just destroys everything. The end.

Besides, I still maintain that if a Macross mecha goes against a Gundam mecha then the physics of BOTH shows need to apply in order for things to be fair. Therefore the Gundam magic particles fuck up guidance systems because the Macross systems aren’t specifically said to be resistant to such.

I wonder if the Gundam Unicorn’s NT-D system would be able to take control of the VF-27 or the YF-21, seeing as both use the pilots’ brainwaves for controll. For that matter, Unicorn could probably take control of both the EVA-01 (which Shinji drives via mentally begging his mama to save his sorry behind) and EVERY Variable Fighter in the Robotech version of Macross since they have that whole “thinking cap” thing going on. LOL too bad Sinanju doesn’t have NT-D installed. However, if it had an I-Field barrier (like, uh, the TURN A DID!!!!) then all the missiles in the world aren’t going to do any good against it. Seriously, Turn A should have won the whole tournament if we were going by actual displayed powers abilities, but we aren’t. This is a popularity contest, and that’s fine, but let’s not try to make this about why the Sinanju would be easily defeated by a VF-1 in the absence of Minovsky Particle interference just because we’re down to the semi-final round.

The NT-D only works on Newtypes. It wouldn’t even work on Kira Yamato.

If you want to see Gundams beating Macross units or anything, all you need are AU pilots and magic. The UC is just there to be kicked around. What’s an Itano Circus against METEOR and Kira who can pin-point hit hundreds of targets with dozens of beams and manage to not kill anyone?

I choose to believe that Gundam SEED doesn’t really exist, so I’m trying really really hard not to understand what you’re talking about.

However, what’s to say that Innovators/Newtypes/Macross thought-controll systems aren’t all different expressions of the same thing? In a real-world sense, they are all basically the same trope – mental control of machinery. I realize that Newtype theory is all about humanity increasing its awareness once free from the constraints of gravity and all that, but what it’s REALY there for is so that Amuro can dodge the carefully aimed shots of all three Black Tri-Stars, etc. It’s a plot device (literally) that makes initially normal fighters (or those with little experience) into proper killing machines. Of course, no matter how good Hikaru became through hard work and guts or how naturally skilled Max is in a dogfight, it’s not going to work when that elite Newtype monster dodges every attack thrown at him. Energy converting armor is only so strong, after all, and it hardly works in fighter mode. In a head to head robot fight, Sinanju would probably close on the VF-1 and easily slice it in half, since I don’t think a 55mm HEAT round is gonna do much good against Lunar Titanium/Gundanium.

As explanations for giant bipedal robots go, the Minovsky Particle seems a little weak (smaller, multi-legged mecha [or just wicked awesome tanks] for ground and straight ungangly, ugly things for space would make more sense if you’re still going to go with the “Ender’s Game” “swimming in space” idea). Giant humanoid enemies are a little better at explaining the need for a giant robot (which I’m still just not sold on in Macross’ world). That is to say, I still think a couple Macross Missile Massacres in fighter mode would be way better than ever switching to battloid or gerwalk when dealing with a Mobile Suit in a world without radar interference.

Luna Titanium/Gundanium’s strength is overrated by most fans anyway. In the more realistic shows we’ve seen how, while it does offer a better protection to weight ration than plain steel, it’s not as godlike as the plot armor would have you believe.

Besides, if a HEAT round don’t work, there’s always the nuclear option, and we’ve seen multiple times how varaible fighters (even the VF-1) are capable tactical nuke platforms.

All the VF-1 needs to do is fly around at high speed avoiding all attacks from the Sinanju, wait for the Sinanju to be out of power(thermonuclear engines provides high energy output and almost infinite time limit), turn to battloid form and shoot at point-blank range. In a melee fight, grab Sinanju’s arms and use the head lasers to cut the arms off

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